


Unlovable

by Decaykid



Series: Unyielding [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Behavior, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Prostitution, M/M, Pseudo-Incest, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-06 00:44:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17929538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Decaykid/pseuds/Decaykid
Summary: “You don’t need me! You never did! You never even cared!” He says at last, finally speaking the truth he’s been denying all along.“You did everything to shut me out! You never even tried to let me in. I was there with you, every night, and instead you’d turn to the drugs and the strangers. You acted like I was just another ghost...”“I never asked you to-““No, I know. You never asked me to stay. But I couldn’t... couldn’t just leave you, like everyone else did. You act like you’re all alone. I thought if I stuck around, you’d see that I care, I thought I could show you that I-“The words get caught up in his throat, and there’s panic where his heart used to beat.“What could Dave give you that I couldn’t?” He asks instead, as he finally turns to look at Klaus. “What makes him worth it?”





	Unlovable

Ben sits, and watches like he always does, but this time he listens with morbid curiosity. He had wondered where Klaus had went. One moment they were on the bus together, Klaus shamelessly flirting with the women sitting across from him, and then the next...

 

“We soldiered together in the A Shau Valley in the mountain of the Crouching Beast.”

 

“Well, Dave must have been a very special person, to put up with your weird-ass shit.”

 

No.

 

Not another one. Not another stranger, another warm body to curl into when the nights get rough. Not another bed, an unspoken exchange of sex for shelter, for food, for a shower.

 

Except it wasn’t like the other times.

 

Klaus had said he had been gone for ten months.

 

His expression has gone soft, tender even.

 

“Yeah. Yeah, he was...”

 

No, Ben thinks.

 

This isn’t happening. It couldn’t have happened... he was gone for a few minutes, half an hour at most.

 

“He was kind, and strong and vulnerable, and ... beautiful.”

 

Ben feels a terrible ache in his chest, it feels like he’s dying all over again.

 

“Beautiful. And I was ... foolish enough to follow him all the way to the front line.”

 

Numb... numb. Everything in death feels numb. Ben no longer feels the warmth of a human being, or the breeze on his face, the rain on his skin, the chill of night. The numbness takes him, from the outside in, and he feels an eerie stillness inside as the pain suddenly ebbs away.

 

“You fought in the shit?”

 

“Oh yeah, baby.”

 

Their voices sound so far away, suddenly he’s uninvested in the conversation as his mind tries to conjure up images of this Dave, of his precious Klaus in war gear, in the mud and grime, fighting in a war, where violence and death surround him. He imagines Klaus at night, terrified of the ghosts that haunt the battlefields, with out his aids to ease the pain and horror. He imagines Klaus, scared and alone, abandoned, lost, displaced through time.

 

And he imagines this Dave, loving Klaus so softly and tenderly, holding him so closely, protective, the way Ben has always wanted to.

 

Klaus had finally found someone to provide for him everything that Ben couldn’t, someone who could truly take care of him, not provide a temporary fix.

 

He found someone who would lay down his life for him, someone he could trust so intimately, and love in return.

 

“How’d they let you do that?”

 

“Let me? The war couldn’t take enough bodies, please ... including his. Hey look at us, logging in some quality bro time before the end of the world.”

 

Dave.

 

The only person that Klaus has ever truly loved, truly cared for.

 

Now he wants to get sober, to see him one last time before the world ends.

 

How many times has Ben asked, begged, pleaded, encouraged? After how many nights, weeks, hours, hospital stays, rehab visits, nights in the street, in shelters, in run down motels or worse looking houses? After how many highs, lows, hangovers, flashbacks and nightmares, cries for mercy, for forgiveness, for peace? Ben could be spending his eternity anywhere else, anywhere in the world. He could be searching for his mother, visiting the places around the world he’s always wanted to see, he could be hanging out on a deserted island somewhere, free of responsibility, of care, but instead, he’s chosen to slum it out with Klaus, to give him some sense of solidarity, so the long nights seem less lonely, so the dark seems less terrifying, so the world seems less overwhelming, less huge and empty, because he couldn’t, has never, been able to stand the thought of Klaus out there all alone. He never wanted him to feel like he was in the mausoleum again, abandoned and ignored.

 

Unloved.

 

“Yeah. Might as well. Everyone I like is already dead.”

 

Suddenly he can’t be in the room anymore. He can’t sit here, watch Klaus do this for someone else, as though he means nothing, as though everything he’s done means nothing. Ben tears his eyes from Klaus whose expression is still so tender, so soft though pained, as if Dave’s love is the ultimate high he’s ever achieved, and he’s willing to do anything- including sober up -in order to get his next fix.

 

Klaus watches as Ben suddenly gets to his feet and leave the room in haste.

 

He doesn’t understand.

 

Ben’s never walked out on him before.

 

He’s finally sobering up. Isn’t this what Ben has always wanted? What he’s always asking?

 

How’s he supposed to do this without Ben here?

 

He lets out a nervous whine, and Diego turns at the threshold.

 

“What?”

 

“I... have to pee?” He offers sheepishly.

 

 

 

Klaus huffs as he makes his way steadily down the hallway, his body still aches from the time traveling and his head is swimming, but he’s about to catch up with Ben, so he pushes himself a little further.

 

“Ben... hey Ben, buddy, where ya going?”

 

“What are you doing?” Ben flinches at his own tone, he didn’t intend for his words to sound so harsh.

 

“Aren’t you supposed to be tied to a chair getting sober?” He asks, softer this time, but he doesn’t relent in his brisk pace. If Klaus is going to follow him, he’s damn sure going to have to work for it. Ben isn’t about to stop for him, not now.

 

“Yeah, yes, but I...” Klaus lets his words trail off as he struggles for a breath, and Ben hates each second that sits full of silence.

 

Can Klaus not even bring himself to say it?

 

He suddenly stops, turns on his heel and Klaus is caught off guard, almost phases right through him as he throws his hands up to his chest, palms out, as though he’d actually run into Ben.

 

“No.” Ben says sternly as he points a finger at Klaus. “If you’re doing this for Dave, then do it for Dave.”

 

Ben hates how expressive Klaus can be, how plainly transparent his wide, beautiful eyes can make his emotions. Right now he’s looking at Ben with complete and utter pained confusion.

 

“I-I am doing it for Dave...?”

 

“Then you don’t need me.” Ben says as he’s shoving his hands hard into his pockets. He turns and begins back down the hallway, hoping that’s enough to end the conversation.

 

There’s only a moment of hesitation before Ben hears the sound of worn converse padding across the carpet behind him.

 

“Ben,” Klaus says, then chuckles, the one Ben knows he does when he’s trying to come off as relaxed and chummy, often to diffuse a situation, “of course I d-“

 

Ben stops walking again, but this time he doesn’t turn around.

 

“Oh sure, you need me. You need me like you need drugs, or the alcohol. Like you need the first asshole that you gives you five minutes of undivided attention. Like the scumbag who lets you crawl into bed with them. I’m just something else for you to use at your convenience.”

 

It’s quiet, and the silence seems to fill up the hallway, the rooms, the house. And it stretches on, uncomfortably. But Ben doesn’t dare speak. He stands there, wondering why Klaus doesn’t say anything or walk away.

 

It’s ironic, he thinks, that Klaus has done everything to keep the ghosts at bay, and now it’s Ben who is being haunted.

 

He should be the one to walk away.

 

He stands there, thinking of how he’d rather be anywhere but here, in this hallway, in the presence of Klaus, in this damned house. The end of the world is coming, he should make the best of it- that’s what Klaus is doing. But no matter how hard he tries, he just can’t get his feet to move.

 

How can he just walk away? After all this time? After everything they’ve been through? After everything he’s waited through? He can’t just cut his losses and leave. He can’t just act like all of this has meant nothing to him. Everything he did, it was for a purpose.

 

He came back for a reason.

 

He came back to _him_ for a reason.

 

He stuck around for a reason.

 

And he can’t leave now for that reason.

 

“You don’t need me! You never did! You never even cared!” He says at last, finally speaking the truth he’s been denying all along.

 

“You did everything to shut me out! You never even tried to let me in. I was there with you, every night, and instead you’d turn to drugs and strangers. You acted like I was just another ghost...”

 

“I never asked you to-“

 

“No, I know. You never asked me to stay. But I couldn’t... couldn’t just leave you, like everyone else did. You act like you’re all alone. I thought if I stuck around, you’d see that I care, I thought I could show you that I-“

 

The words get caught up in his throat, and there’s panic where his heart used to beat.

 

“What could Dave give you that I couldn’t?” He asks instead, as he finally turns to look at Klaus. “What makes him worth it?”

 

“Ben, stop. You’re... this is totally unfair.”

 

“Unfair? Unfair?! Unfair is watching the person you love slowly kill off parts of himself night after night for years, then suddenly disappear for thirty minutes, only to reappear and decide that someone else is worth starting over for while dismissing everything you’ve been through together as though it never mattered! Like I never mattered! Like _we_ never mattered!”

 

Klaus looks at Ben with a guarded expression.

 

“What are you saying Ben?”

 

“I’m saying that I lo-“

 

 

 

**[Wednesday, 8:15 am ... again.]**

 

The fate of the world rests on five - six people, but Klaus isn’t paying his siblings any mind as he lays half curled on the couch, one arm wrapped around himself. Ben isn’t paying any attention either, instead he’s watching Klaus and admiring how he looks in the morning light filtering through the sitting room’s curtains.

 

Klaus looks miserable, and Ben moves in closer, so close that if he had a physical form their thighs could be touching. He aches to touch Klaus, to cradle him, to move his head into his lap as he runs his fingers through his hair until the pain passes.

 

He wants to ask where he went. It was just two hours ago that they had broken free from the motel and were on the bus ride home when he suddenly just ... vanished. At a loss, Ben returned home and when he saw Klaus again, he was walking down the hall from the bathroom to his room, naked and glistening as he left blood tinted footprints along the tiled floor.

 

Regardless, he had been kidnapped and tortured, and no one has seemed to notice his absence.

 

Klaus groans, stiffly stands from the couch.

 

“You don’t have to do this alone...” Ben says.

 

He’s not as alone as he thinks he is.

 

Can’t he see that?

**Author's Note:**

> Gotta love that pesky little time jump :,)


End file.
